Posted on 10/09/2007 3:56:14 PM PDT by wagglebee
October 9, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A. Patrick Schneider II, M.D., M.P.H., who holds boards in family and geriatric medicine and who received a Masters in Public Health from Harvard University, is in private practice in Lexington, Kentucky.
"Cohabitation -- it's training for divorce." -- Chuck Colson (1995)
1. Cohabitation is growing: 35 to 40 years ago cohabitation was rare; it was socially taboo. Growth by decade was: 1960s (up 19 percent), 1970s (up 204 percent), 1980s (up 80 percent), 1990s (up 66 percent), but up only 7.7 percent between 2000 and 2004. All told, cohabitation is up eleven-fold (U.S. Census Bureau, "Unmarried-Couple Households, by Presence of Children: 1960 to Present," Table UC-1, June 12, 2003).
2. Relationships are unstable: One-sixth of cohabiting couples stay together for only three years; one in ten survives five or more years (Bennett, W.J., The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family, 2001).
3. Greater risk of divorce: The rate of divorce among those who cohabit prior to marriage is nearly double (39 percent vs. 21 percent) that of couples who marry without prior cohabitation (ibid.).
4. Women suffer disproportionately: Cohabiting women often end up with the responsibilities of marriage -- particularly when it comes to caring for children -- without the legal protection (ibid.), while contributing more than 70 percent of the relationship's income (Crouse, J.C., "Cohabitation: Consequences for Mothers and Children," presentation at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 11-14, 2004, U.N. Tenth Anniversary of the International Year of the Family).
5. Greater risk of STD: Men in cohabiting relationships are four times more likely to be unfaithful than husbands (ibid.). In 1960 there were only three STDs; now there are two dozen that are incurable. Cases of STD have tripled in the past six years. The rate of STD among cohabiting couples is six times higher than among married women (Crouse, J.C., Gaining Ground: A Profile of American Women in the Twentieth Century, 2000).
6. Greater risk of substance abuse and psychiatric problems: A UCLA survey of 130 published studies found that marriages preceded by cohabitation were more prone to drug and alcohol problems (Coombs, R.H., "Marital Status and Personal Well-Being: A Literature Review," Family Relations, Jan. 1991). Depression is three times more likely in cohabiting couples than among married couples (Robbins, L., Rieger, D., Psychiatric Disorders in America, 1990).
7. Higher poverty rates: Cohabitors who never marry have 78 percent less wealth than the continuously married; cohabitors who have been divorced or widowed once have 68 percent less wealth (Cohabitation Facts website).
8. Children suffer: The poverty rate among children of cohabiting couples is five fold greater than the rate among children in married-couple households (Bennett, op. cit.). Compared to children of married biological parents, children age 12-17 with cohabiting parents are six times more likely to exhibit emotional and behavioral problems (Booth, A., Crouter, A.C., eds., Just Living Together: Implications of Cohabitation on Families, Children and Social Policy, 2002). Likewise, adolescents from cohabiting households are 122 percent more likely to be expelled from school and 90 percent more likely to have a low GPA (Manning, W.D., Lamb, K.A., "Adolescent Well-Being in Cohabiting, Married and Single-Parent Families," Journal of Marriage and Family, Nov. 2003). Children find themselves without grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins; the family tree is pruned (Bennett, op. cit.).
9. Society pays: The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with two million souls in federal and state prisons and local jails. In 1980 the figure was just over 500,000 (Bennett, op. cit.). Seventy percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions are from fatherless homes (Drake, T., "The Father Factor: Crime on Increase in ‘Dad Free' Zones," National Catholic Register, Jan. 2007). Three-fourths of children involved in criminal activity were from cohabiting households (Crouse, op. cit.).
10. Cohabitation breeds abuse, violence, and murder: Abuse of children: Rates of serious abuse are lowest in intact families; six times higher in stepfamilies; 14 times higher in always-single-mother families; 20 times higher in cohabiting biological-parent families; and 33 times higher when the mother is cohabiting with a boyfriend who is not the biological father (Crouse, op. cit.). Abuse of women: Compared to a married woman, a cohabiting woman is three times more likely to experience physical aggression (Salari, S.M., Baldwin, B.M., "Verbal, Physical, and Injurious Aggression Among Intimate Couples Over Time," Journal of Family Issues, May 2002), and nine times more likely to be murdered (Shackelford, T.K., "Cohabitation, Marriage, and Murder: Woman-Killing by Male Romantic Partners," Aggressive Behavior, vol. 27, 2001). This data is consistent with similar data on children.
Cohabitation is bad for men, worse for women, and horrible for children. It is a deadly toxin to marriage, family, and culture. With great insight and wisdom Pope Benedict XVI has recently written in Sacramentum Caritatis (March 13, 2007) that among the four "fundamental values" that are "not negotiable," second only to respect for human life is "the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman."
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This article first appeared in the September 2007 issue of the New Oxford Review, and is reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2007 New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley CA 94706, U.S.A., http://www.newoxfordreview.org.
No problem for me.
Let tham smoke some pot and get cotton mouth.
They'll drink like fishes.
;^)
I just puked on my keyboard.
If you think I’m clicking on that link, you’re crazy. I don’t want to catch anything.
Since you like "statistical tricks," here's another one for you. Couples who practice natural family planning, rather than using artificially induced sterility, enjoy a divorce rate of less than 5%. (Marital duration and natural family planning)
So basically, this "statistical trick" proves that couples who do not live together before marriage, and who joyfully welcome children into life, walmost never divorce.
This "statistical trick" used to be called common sense.
*Mandell, Bennett, & Dolin: Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases, 6th ed., 2005.
Human Papilloma Virus infection can be eradicated in many cases using topical agents
I’m not disputing that, I’m merely pointing out that there is no empirical cure for them.
Irreplaceable, eh?
Golly, you're so much better than me since you're NATURAL!
What a sanctimonious statement.
You've missed the important question: Is it a true statement? And the answer is yes, because, at the very least, cohabitation represents a public scandal.
Can you provide a scenario where cohabitation would not be wrong? I can think of one or two where, for example, your small plane crashes in Alaska near an abandoned house. To survive the cold, you must sleep together with another survivor of the crash, a member of the opposite sex, in the cabin overnight.
But that isn't the usual case.
I'm glad I wasn't drinking coffee when I read that!
I can easily see this argument being put forward as a reason why cohabitation is right in all cases. After all, it makes just as much sense as the argument that 1.3 MILLION children a year should be butchered because a few thousand rape victims become pregnant.
Yes. The graces that come naturally with natural parenthood come no other way. It seems so obvious that it shouldn't require proof. But if you want empirical data, there's tons of it out there.
If you want biblical evidence, here it is, in Jesus' rhetorical question:
Luke 11:11Golly, you're so much better than me since you're NATURAL!"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?"
The graces that come naturally with parenthood are not the only graces dispensed by God (!). Clearly, grace is working through anyone who adopts a child. This is why adoptive parents can be great parents --even better than natural parents.
But adoptive parents never get the same graces that come through natural parenthood. And this is why, statistically, stepfathers and live-in boyfriends tend to abuse children at a higher rate than the children's natural parents.
Because you seem to find Luke 11:11 far more compelling than I do, please note that Jesus doesn't say NATURAL fathers. "Fathers" is good enough for him, but I guess you think you know better, and that making distinctions that demean parents unlike yourself is a good idea.
I also notice that you skipped over including adoptive fathers in your incest/abuse stats. I suppose that's because they don't fit your agenda, in that they don't have higher rates than the NATURAL.
And this concerns you, how? Did it ever occur to these folks that many of those who cohabit do so knowing that "all good things must come to an end?"
I think they are just saying that cohabitating is NOT a committment and therefore not a relationship built on solid ground. Something happens in a marriage ceremony that I truly never expected; I was stunned. I have asked others, they confirm. It is DIFFERENT.
I think it's reasonable to assume that Jesus was speaking of natural fathers. But it's certainly possible that He was including adoptive fathers in his rhetorical question, since the care of widows and orphans was considered the highest form of charity among Jews, and the act of adoption obviously reflects the operation of grace.
I also notice that you skipped over including adoptive fathers in your incest/abuse stats.
There's a logical reason for this, since adoptive fathers are categorically different from stepfathers and, obviously, live-in boyfriends. Adoptive parents almost always choose to have adopted children, whereas the same cannot be assumed for stepfathers, and especially live-in boyfriends.
I suppose that's because they don't fit your agenda, in that they don't have higher rates than the NATURAL.
I don't know what the rates are, but presumably the abuse rate would be much closer to that of natural fathers than stepfathers and live-in boyfriends, for the aforementioned reason.
You don't need to live together to learn what day to day life is like.
Anyone in a serious relationship should keep their own residence. Its 10 times harder if you end up breaking up and don't have a place of your own.
Yeah, maybe He was including His unnatural father, Joseph.
You assume so much, and create so many distinctions, that you offend. You've been told that before, but you obviously don't have respect for the opinions offered you, so I'm sure you'll shoulder on. The only other person I've encountered here that was so demeaning regarding this topic was another uber-Catholic, non-adoptive parent, askel5. I'm not sure what exactly it is in your culture that fosters this kind of arrogance, but it does more harm than good.
If you were an adoptive parent you'd know that.
Would you support laws banning room-mates of the opposite sex?
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